HELP please: 1998 BMW 323is hard shifting up and down at around 15-20 mph

[AaronSM]

Hello all,

I'm new to the forums so maybe this has been discussed in the past, but I would be unimaginably thankful if someone can help me because I'm getting desperate. I have a 1998 BMW 323is with approximately 94,000 miles on it. Around a year ago I had to replace the battery and afterward I began noticing a jerk or hard shift only when going in and out of second gear, around 20mph up and 15mph down. I asked around and received mixed messages. At first I was told that the computer probably needed reflashing and that it might have "forgotten" how to shift. I was reluctant to go to a dealership though and never fixed the problem. After a year of driving it like this I finally had the transmission looked at and there was some mechanical damage (probably from driving it like this so long). I had the transmission rebuilt because of the damage and hoped it would solve the issue but it didn't so I finally took it to a dealer. They told me that there was a bad cam shift sensor and a bad air mass meter (I was also starting to have acceleration problems but these are fixed now.) I replaced the sensors thus fixing the aforementioned acceleration problems. By now I'm desperate to get this fixed. I don't want to damage the transmission again. Do I need to get the computer reflashed? Is there a way to fix this myself? And if it needs reflashed how do I get this done?

[marti5]

First thing I would do is to rest the adaptations in the EGS, might as well do them in the EU while your at it, this can only be done via diagnostics and takes around 2 minutes, secondly I would check the box fluid level.

An EGS re flash wouldn't do much,although worth asking BMW if there's an updated version of software for your model, as sometimes on certain models there is but they don't do a recall, they only do it when a customer complains a lot...

[AaronSM]

Originally Posted by marti5

First thing I would do is to rest the adaptations in the EGS, might as well do them in the EU while your at it, this can only be done via diagnostics and takes around 2 minutes, secondly I would check the box fluid level.

An EGS re flash wouldn't do much,although worth asking BMW if there's an updated version of software for your model, as sometimes on certain models there is but they don't do a recall, they only do it when a customer complains a lot...

Thanks marti5,

Ouch sounds like something only BMW can do. I'm fairly sure that it's nothing mechanical so I'll try the other stuff. Any suggestions on how to get BMW to do this kind of stuff for me without paying out the rear end? (Don't know if its any easier or different over there though).